Singapore Noir
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan (ed.)
Singapore: Monsoon Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789814423694

Beneath Singapore's sparkling veneer is a country teeming with shadows. Explore the city-state's forgotten back alleys, red-light districts, kelongs and gambling dens with 14 illustrious writers, three of them Singapore Literature Prize winners. This exciting anthology - compiled by US-based Singaporean author Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan and part of the award-winning Noir series developed by Akashic Books in New York - promises to uncover a side of Singapore rarely explored in literature.

A Certain Exposure
Jolene Tan
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789810788285

Satirical and sympathetic, political and personal, A Certain Exposure traces the adolescences of twin brothers Andrew and Brian, culminating in the explosive events leading to Andrew's tragic death.

A classic coming-of-age tale doubled across two vividly individual brothers, who struggle to navigate a complex tangle of relationships and coercive forces, cinematically interwoven with the yearnings and fears of an ensemble of mothers, fathers, cousins, friends and lovers both false and true. This wide-ranging debut beautifully presents the resonances and the ghosts of lost possibilities, as well as a gripping story of hope and betrayal.

Mobilizing Gay Singapore: Rights and Resistance in an Authoritarian State
Lynette J. Chua
Singapore: NUS Press, 2014
ISBN: 9789971698157

From private meetings in living rooms in the 1990s to the emergence of annual rallies and decriminalization campaigns in the past six years, Singapore's gay rights activists have sought equality and justice in a state that does not recognise their rights to seek protection of their civil and political liberties. In her groundbreaking book, Mobilizing Gay Singapore, Lynette Chua tells the history of the gay rights movement in Singapore and asks what a social movement looks like under these circumstances. She examines the movement's emergence, development, strategies, and tactics, as well as the roles of law and rights in social processes.

Chua uses in-depth interviews with gay activists, observations of the movement's activities, movement documents, government statements, and media reports. She shows how activists deployed (and still deploy) "pragmatic resistance" to gain visibility and support, and tackle political norms that suppress dissent, while avoiding direct confrontations with the law.

Naked Ape, Naked Boss: The Man Behind the Singapore Zoo & the World's First Night Safari: Bernard Harrison
Kirpal Singh
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2014
ISBN: 9789814351720

Bernard Harrison is credited for having shaped Singapore's most attractive and iconic leisure destinations — the Singapore Zoo and the Night Safari. For nearly 30 years he was intimately involved and engaged with the transformation and creative developments of these nature parks.

This book explores Harrison's journey and focuses on the critical phases which served as moments of reckoning. How easy was it for this passionate and determined man who couldn't and wouldn't take "no" for an answer to do what he really and truly wanted? What shaped his personality? What problems did he encounter in wanting to create a zoo and a night safari that Singapore could be, and is, proud of? In both the personal and the professional fields, his positioning of certain beliefs and value-systems are put in context and readers will be made aware of the intimate drivers of his passions.

The Ruling Elite of Singapore: Networks of Power and Influence
Michael Barr
London: I.B. Tauris, 2014
ISBN: 9781780762340

The Republic of Singapore was born on 9 August 1965 through a formal act of separation from the Federation of Malaysia. It was greeted by many with fireworks in the streets, but by the end of the year it appeared that Singapore would have to seek re-entry on humiliating terms. Then, shortly after National Day celebration in 1966, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew delivered a seminal speech. Setting out the fundamental principles on which Singapore's national ideology and founding mythology were to rest, Lee promised a hierarchical and unashamedly elitist society, whose harsh edges were justified in the short term by the urgent need to work for Singapore's survival. In effect, he was presenting a blueprint for the manufacture of the elite that has ruled ever since.

Michael Barr explores the complex and covert networks of power at work in one of the world's most prosperous countries - the city-state of Singapore. He argues that the contemporary networks of power result from a deliberate project initiated and managed by Lee Kuan Yew - Singapore's 'founding father' - designed to empower himself and his family. By tracing the evolutionary changes that have occurred in these networks, as well as the durable patterns that underlie them, the author is able to cast fresh light on the existing elite. He identifies the crucial institutions of power - including the cabinet, the military, the country's sovereign wealth funds, and the government-linked companies - and five critical features that provide the key to understanding the nature and character of the networks of power. The author concludes with an assessment of possible shifts of power within the elite in the wake of Lee Kuan Yew's son, Lee Hsien Loong, assuming power, and considers the possibility of a more fundamental democratic shift in Singapore's political system. The result is a powerful and revealing insight into one of the world's leading financial centres that will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand present and future power relationships in Singapore politics and society.

Beyond the Tea Dance: The Story of Singapore Sixties Music, Vol. 2
Joseph C. Pereira
Singapore: Select Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789810792848

Beyond the Tea Dance is the second volume of Joseph Pereira’s comprehensive survey of the Singapore pop music scene in the 1960s. Apache over Singapore, the first volume, was published in 2011.

The second half of the sixties saw seismic shifts in the global music scene. In Singapore, newer breed of bands was coming to the fore, many with outlandish names. Tea dances became increasingly popular. Discotheques started sprouting up to cater to a new hip crowd. Pop Yeh Yeh, which had always been active alongside the mainstream pop music scene, came into its own with many releases. Singapore bands were very active playing the British services circuit and in Vietnam.

But, as the decade drew to a close, several pivotal events signalled the end of this glorious era for Singapore pop music.

Beyond the Tea Dance examines in rich detail all the major bands and singers in this turbulent period.

Body Boundaries: The EtiquetteSG Anthologies Volume I
Tania Rozario, Zarina Muhammad & Krishna Udayasankar (eds.)
Singapore: The Literary Centre, 2014
ISBN: 9789810789466

Body Boundaries is an anthology of words by twenty‐seven women writers from Singapore. Comprising works of poetry and prose, the collection breaks down barriers between public and private, personal and political, to reveal both collective and diverse experiences threaded together and defied by identity markers of gender and geography.

The collection is the first volume of a series by EtiquetteSG, a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to developing and showcasing art, writing, film and music created by women in Singapore.

Dissident Voices in Singapore: Personalities in Singapore's Political History
Clement Mesenas
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2013
ISBN: 9789814398336

They stood firm on their convictions despite the odds. Some paid a heavy toll for their beliefs – deprivations, long prison terms, lonely lives in self-imposed exile. But they never broke. Some will say the unflinching attitude of these dissidents against what they perceived as coercive authority has been an exercise in futility. Yet other say the course of Singapore’s history might have been altered if their will had prevailed.

Their stories need to be told.

The first of it’s kind, this book will inform and educate. Rather than to glorify their tough stance, these memoirs are a record of human endurance. It exemplifies the extremes sacrifices some people will make in pursuit of their ideals. Written by veteran journalist and author Clement Mesenas, this book chronicles the lives of twenty of this country’s leading dissidents – including Lim Chin Siong, David Marshall and Ong Eng Guan, among many others.

Remembering the Samsui Women: Migration and Social Memory in Singapore and China
Kelvin E.Y. Low
British Columbia: University of British Columbia Press, 2014
ISBN: 9780774825757
Singapore: NUS Press, 2015
ISBN: 9789971698584

In the early twentieth century, thousands of women from the Samsui area of Guangdong, China migrated to Singapore during a period of economic and natural calamity, leaving their families behind. In their new country, many found work in the construction industry, with others working in households or factories where they were called hong tou jin, translated literally as "red-head-scarf," after the headgear that protected them from the sun.

In Singapore, the women have been celebrated as pioneering figures for their hard work and resilience, and in China for the sacrifices they made for their families. Kelvin Low explores the lives and legacy of the Samsui women, both through media and state representations and through the oral histories of the women themselves. Thus, his work sheds light on issues of their identity, both publicly constructed and self-defined, and explores why they undertook their difficult migration.

Remembering the Samsui Women is an illuminating study of the connection between memory and nation, including the politics of what is remembered and what is forgotten.

Hard Choices: Challenging the Singapore Consensus
Donald Low & Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh
Singapore: NUS Press, 2014
ISBN: 9789971698164

Singapore is changing. The consensus that the PAP government has constructed and maintained over five decades is fraying. The assumptions that underpin Singaporean exceptionalism are no longer accepted as easily and readily as before. Among these are the ideas that the country is uniquely vulnerable, that this vulnerability limits its policy and political options, that good governance demands a degree of political consensus that ordinary democratic arrangements cannot produce, and that the country's success requires a competitive meritocracy accompanied by relatively little income or wealth redistribution.

But the policy and political conundrums that Singapore faces today are complex and defy easy answers. Confronted with a political landscape that is likely to become more contested, how should the government respond? What reforms should it pursue? This collection of essays suggests that a far-reaching and radical rethinking of the country's policies and institutions is necessary, even if it weakens the very consensus that enabled Singapore to succeed in its first 50 years.